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1. Bob Mottram (bob@social.freedombone.net)'s status on Friday, 21-Apr-2017 08:22:12 UTC Bob Mottram
   Reading about what became known as The Shatner Test an observation is that mainstream celebrity status can only exist in a centralised broadcast system. That is, where it's possible to have a rank in the hierarchy and be able to scrupulously enforce the public use of your persona.
   
   In a decentralised system celebrity is more like what it was before radio broadcasting in the era of local music hall stars.
   
   Prediction: if it gets popular enough, very few celebrities of the 20th century mode will endorse or make significant use of federated systems. Instead, what constitutes celebrity itself will change.
   • Bob Mottram (bob@social.freedombone.net)'s status on Friday, 21-Apr-2017 08:48:58 UTC Bob Mottram

     • Tobias
     @tobias that's another possibility, although the point which Shatner complains about is that he can't control what happens on other people's nodes. So there can exist "unofficial" ShatnerBots, spoof accounts and so on. Similar happens on Twitter, but because of the centralised design it's possible to globally enforce a single policy.
   • Bob Mottram (bob@social.freedombone.net)'s status on Friday, 21-Apr-2017 09:13:52 UTC Bob Mottram

     • Tobias
     @tobias it is similar to local newspapers, although there may be a lot of nodes with different admins in different jurisdictions and spoof accounts can relocate anywhere or just self-host. So it may be difficult to get the same sort of legal traction which is possible with newspapers.